Be mindful that not all meters are of the same
quality/toughness. Before you buy a bunch of any meters buy one or
two and try them out. Make sure they will hold up the the kind of
abuse they will receive in a teaching lab. In general a good
analog meter will cost in the range of $50 to $100 not counting
the housing. Look at Simpson or Triplet in the Allied Electronics
or Newark catalogs. It isn't surprising that cheap multimeters
are so popular.
Many of the cheaper meters tend to have their pointer pivots come
out of their bearings. Also the needles will bend when overloaded.
They just aren't built for abuse. They may work well for a
technician but will go belly up at the first abuse by an
inexperienced student. Often they can be fixed but it takes care
and a steady hand and a little time. Won't say anything about any
retailer, some sell better meters than others -just make sure what
you buy will satisfy your requirements.

Dan

On 5/27/11 8:33 AM, Edward Sabol wrote:

one example

http://sciencekit.com/economy-dc-bench-meters/p/IG0027775/

> From: stoeckly@silcom.com
> To: tap-l@lists.ncsu.edu
> Subject: Re: [tap-l] old analog meters
> Date: Thu, 26 May 2011 12:54:45 -0700
>
> I'd like to buy some if you have 6 alike or similar, either
up to 5A or 5V
> (or I could use 10A or 10V). I teach at a very new campus, so
we don't have
> old stuff. And I can't interest anyone else in my department
in analogue
> meters, with multimeters so cheap. But I teach a course for
future
> elementary school teachers, and they are put off and
overwhelmed by the
> multimeters. I tried eBay, but never found more than one at a
time.
>
> Beth Stoeckly
> California State University Channel Islands
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tap-l-owner@lists.ncsu.edu
[mailto:tap-l-owner@lists.ncsu.edu] On
> Behalf Of cockmanje@appstate.edu
> Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 7:31 AM
> To: tap-l@lists.ncsu.edu
> Cc: tap-l@lists.ncsu.edu; Paul Nord
> Subject: [tap-l] old analog meters
>
> Are they worth anything? We have a lot of old ammeters and
voltmeters mace
> by
> Welch Scientific, Weston, STANSI, etc.
>
> John
>
>